I have been getting a lot of spam on my blog comments. You probably don’t notice it because it shows up on old posts. I found this nice artical that talks about the problem. This plugin for WordPress looks promising. I’m going install it and see how it does.
I made it back home yesterday.
We went to Walmart today and I bought the new U2 CD. I haven’t listend to much of it yet, but if it is as good as the rest of their albums, I’ll probably like it.
Well, off to bed.
Friday I went to Muncie to get coffee than came back and watched Memento.
Saturday, I was productive, homework wise all afternoon. Then we went to Indy on a Pick-A-Date. For the Pick-A-Date we went to Comedy Spotz.
Today, Sunday, I went to church and the pastor’s wife prepared a Thanksgiving style dinner for the college students. It was good. Ashley came over to visit in the afternoon. We had delicious tea and watched Futurama. I also managed to do some minor updates to my website.
Thanksgiving break, here I come (right after a Mod-Sim test)!
We saw this video on Computer Ethics. Definitally worth the time to watch if you are at all concerned about copyright issues, which you should be. Another reason to watch it is its unique style.
Dunn Solutions was on campus interviewing today. I had an interview with them this morning. This was my first interview, ever, so I was nervous. The interview seemed to go pretty well, but it’s hard to tell. We’ll see how it goes. Any way I’m glad the interview is done. Anyone else looking to hire a full time computer programmer?
In other news: I’m experiencing a lull in homework. It truely is amazing. I’m not sure of what to do. Should I work on the things that aren’t do for almost another week?
I’m sure I can find something to do: reinstall Linux on my Linux computer, update my website, watch Futurama, read books, do far off projects or planed-spontaneous trips to IHOP (can one really have planned spontaneity? — you can tell I really am a J as in INTJ) .
Upcoming events I’m looking forward too:
My Generation Night
Pick-a-Date to Indy
Family Cruise to the Bahamas
Over the weekend I read/saw two things that made me think about how we as Christians engage the culture around us.
First was an artical that Aaron mentioned to me. It is about a journalist from GQ who is a non-Christian. He immersed himself in the American Evangelical subculture for a week. The article chronicles has experiences and thoughts. He is critical of the Christian subculture that creates bad copies of secular things, such as music.
The second was a frontline documentry about advertising. One thing that was especially interesting was the statement that companies are trying to build meaning and community into their products to replace the meaning and community that was traditionally found in churches and schools. Market researches figured this out by studying why people join cults. Another change in advertising over the years has been the shift from appealing to one’s reason (it’s new and improved, works better!) to the more subtle appealing to one’s emotions (use this and you will feel good). It’s scary to think just how much we are influenced by corporate advertising. Even scarier is the fact that political parties are using the same type of things to get people to vote for them.
Many things to think about.
While searching on Wikipedia for such this as Existentialism, Nihilism and Christianity, I decided to type in ‘taylor university’ lo and behold, look what came up.
John Stott has been around campus the past few days. He spoke in chapel today and Wednesday. When I was in London last January, I was able to visit his church, All Souls Church. I don’t think he spoke the day I went, but still a good experience. I really appreciate his urging for balance in Christianity. He also advocates thinking about issues. Too often, I think Christians except the stereotype that church requires you to check your brain at the door. Emotions have become the standard for Christians, we strive for the spiritual highs, and dread the lows. Emotions are important, but not what we should strive for, while abandoning our minds. Jesus says the greatest command is to ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ Matthew 22:37 NIV.
I think that the church’s abandonment of the mind reflects the American pop culture’s mistrust of intelligence. Today, instead of being wise, or intelligent we are merely knowledgeable at best. Think of school these days. In high school, most of my classes just required me to regurgitate information back to the teacher. Here at Taylor, although better (depending on the professor), the same things happens. Just spit the facts back up and you get an A. No thinking required. We need to strive for a balance. The opposite is true. All thought without emotions becomes hard, cold and uncaring. Hence people that think about things, computers, literature, politics, math, physics, society, etc are labeled as ‘nerds’ and ‘geeks’ and become uncool.
The logical outworking of this lack of thought is ‘do whatever feels good’ even if it hurts people or yourself. Don’t think about it, ‘Just do it’. ‘Live for the moment’. etc…